Vol. 2 Timely
Greetings No. 31
THE ONLY
PEACE OF MIND
Volume 2
Number 31
Copyright, 1948 Reprint
All rights reserved
V.T. HOUTEFF
THE RESTORATION AND
THE TIME
Timely Greetings, Vol. 2,
No. 31 1
TEXT FOR PRAYER
Do Your Work; Leave The
Results To God
I shall read from Christ's Object Lessons,
page 64, beginning with the last paragraph:
"The work of the sower
is a work of faith. The mystery of the
germination and growth of the seed he can not understand. But he has confidence in the agencies by
which God causes vegetation to flourish.
In casting his seed into the ground, he is apparently throwing away the
precious grain that might furnish bread for his family. But he is only giving up a present good for a
larger return. He casts the seed away,
expecting to gather it many-fold in an abundant harvest. So Christ's servants are to labor, expecting
a harvest from the seed they sow.... In our life-work we know not which shall
prosper, this or that. This is not a
question for us to settle. We are to do
our work, and leave the results with God."
Let us pray for faith, and then go
cheerfully into the vineyard and sow the seed the Lord has so graciously provided,
remembering His promise that His Work shall not return unto Him void, but that
it shall prosper in the thing whereto He sends it. We must remember, too, that faith is the
first rung of the ladder to salvation, and that without faith we cannot please
God.
Timely Greetings, Vol. 2,
No. 31 2
THE
RESTORATION AND THE TIME
TEXT OF ADDRESS BY V.T. HOUTEFF,
MINISTER OF D. SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS
SABBATH,
MT.
Our text is found in the third chapter of
Acts:
Acts
Here we are told that the heavens must
receive the Lord, not forever, but until the times "of restitution of all
things." He is, therefore, at the
time of restitution to return to earth.
Shall this returning be unexpected? or shall the Lord
first send someone to prepare His way?
And if someone is to precede His coming, who will it be? -- "And he answered and told them, Elias verily cometh first,
and restoreth all things." Mark
Mal. 3:1; 4:5 -- "Behold, I will send My messenger, and he
shall prepare the way before Me: and the Lord, Whom ye seek, shall suddenly
come to His
Timely Greetings, Vol. 2,
No. 31 3
temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight
in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of
hosts.... Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the
great and dreadful day of the Lord."
Here the Scriptures point out that someone
in the spirit and power of Elijah the prophet is first to appear, and will not
only prepare the way, but will also restore all things. Plainly, the message of Elijah shall restore
all things in the great and dreadful day of the Lord, the day of restitution,
the day the Lord comes to His temple, the Church. The spirit of Elijah was a spirit against
idolatry, and his power was a power to destroy those who led in idolatry, and
to bring about purity.
Mal. 3:2, 3 -- "But who may abide the day of His coming? and who shall stand
when He appeareth?
for He is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' sope:
and He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and He shall purify the
sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the
Lord an offering in righteousness."
At this coming He is not to take His saints
to the mansions above, but He is to purify the sons of Levi -- the ministry; He
is to destroy the leaders of idolatry.
Since the purity of His servants is first to be restored, the
restoration, therefore, commences in the Church. Thus is the Edenic
state of peace and security to be restored, for we are told that--
Isa. 11:6-9 -- "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and
the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and
the
Timely Greetings, Vol. 2,
No. 31 4
fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their
young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the
ox. And the sucking child shall play on
the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice'
den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in
all My holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of
the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."
So it was in
Isa.
"In that day" -- that is, in the
day this Edenic peace and security are restored --
then, not after, is the Kingdom of Judah and Israel to be restored (Ezek.
37:16-28) and made to stand for an ensign.
To it shall the Gentiles seek. This restoration of
"Therefore shall
Timely Greetings, Vol. 2,
No. 31 5
the hills; and people shall flow unto it. And many
nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the
Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways,
and we will walk in His paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word
of the Lord from Jerusalem." Mic. 3:12; 4:1, 2.
Clear it is that after the dispersion of the
Jews, and after the destruction of Old
Zech 14:4, 5 -- "And His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives,
which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in
the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a
very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and
half of it toward the south. And ye
shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall
reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled
from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king
of
"In that day." In what day? -- In
the day all nations gather against
Timely Greetings, Vol. 2,
No. 31 6
the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west,
there shall be a very great valley; "and half of the mountain shall remove
toward the north, and half of it toward the south." Zech. 14:4. The Lord's post-millennial coming, too, shall
be similar to this. See Early Writings,
pp. 51, 52.
The servants of God shall then flee to the valley
of the mountains, where the Lord's feet shall stand, and all the saints with
them; that is, the Lord's "feet" will open the way for the
restoration of the Kingdom, and for the gathering of the people into it.
Isa. 11:11-14 -- "And it shall come to pass in that day, that
the Lord shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His
people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from
Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath,
and from the islands of the sea. And He
shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of
Here we see that there is to be peace in
"the valley of the mountains" -- peace between beast and beast, and also between man and man, for the lion shall not
hurt the lamb, and
Timely Greetings, Vol. 2,
No. 31 7
Isa.
Yes,
the Lord will open the way for the gathering of His people. The Exodus of today, therefore, shall be as
the Exodus of yesterday, only on a greater scale. God's people in these last days shall be
gathered from every land, not from the
Isa. 11:16 -- "And there shall be an highway for the remnant
of His people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in
the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt."
Thus shall the kingdom of
Micah 4:4 --
"But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and
none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken
it."
And now this is God's light, and this is His
plea:
Isa. 2:5 -- "O house of Jacob, come
ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord."
The message of Elijah that restores all
Timely Greetings, Vol. 2,
No. 31 8
things is indeed an addition to the Third Angel's Message,
and it shall certainly swell into a loud cry.
It shall gather God's people from the four corners of the earth, and
bring them out of
As Noah's ark preserved every living thing that
was to inhabit the earth after the flood, in like manner the restored Kingdom
of Judah and Israel is to gather and preserve from the plagues every living
thing that is to inhabit the new earth; the Kingdom restored is to be the ark
in our day, and her people shall live and reign a thousand years with Christ
(Rev. 20:4), and finally return when the earth is made new.
Isa. 65:17, 18, 25 -- "For, behold, I create new heavens and a new
earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that
which I create: for, behold, I create
Obviously those who seek to enter into this
ark of safety shall live and reign with Christ during the thousand years, and
those who spurn it shall lie breathless in the "bottomless pit" until
the post-millennial resurrection, only to rise in shame and everlasting
contempt, subject to suffer the second death.
How important, then, that we be not napping,
but that we arise and put on the wedding garment
Timely Greetings, Vol. 2,
No. 31 9
now lest we find ourselves weeping and gnashing our
teeth, even worse than did the ante-diluvians outside
the ark when the rains came and the lightning and thunder blasted through the
sky as the fountains of the deep broke up.
We have now seen that the restoration
"of all things" begins with the gathering of the people unto
Timely Greetings, Vol. 2,
No. 31 10
Solemn Thought
O solemn thought! and can it
be
The hour of Judgment now is come,
Which soon must fix our destiny,
And seal the sinner's fearful doom?
Yes, it is so; the Judgment hour
Is swiftly hastening to its close;
Then will the Judge, in mighty power,
Descend in vengeance on His foes.
He who came down to earth to die,
An offering for the sins of men,
And then ascended up on high,
And will ere long return again,
Is standing now before the ark,
And mercy-seat, and cherubim,
To plead His blood for saints, and make
The last remembrance of their sin.
The solemn moment is at hand
When we who have his name confessed,
Each in his lot must singly stand,
And pass the final, searching test.
Jesus! we hope in Thee
alone;
In mercy now upon us look,
Confess our names before the throne,
And blot our sins from out Thy book.
O Blessed Saviour! may we feel
The full importance of this hour.
Inspire our hearts with holy zeal,
And aid us by Thy Spirit's power,
That we may, in Thy strength, be strong,
And brave the conflict valiantly;
Then, on
And swell the notes of victory.
--R. F. Cottrell.
Timely Greetings, Vol. 2,
No. 31 11